Tying It All Together

• In Maple Ridge, BC 1:1 laptops have brought forth the "cyber classroom" where students attend class three days a week and spend the additional two days learning from home. With the use of 1:1 laptops the school day is not restricted to 9 am -3 pm Monday to Friday. Learning will be occurring 24/7 at the convenience of the learner.

• In the Peace River North School District (also in B.C.), a 1:1 laptop program is being credited with narrowing both the digital divide and the gender divide. “Since full implementation of the Wireless Writing Program, the gap between male and female students has narrowed from 21% in 2003 to 8% in 2004. The gap between Aboriginal students and the total population narrowed from 17% in 2003 to 5% in 2004,” states David K. Vandergugten, Past Director of Instructional Technology.

• Classrooms may not be restricted to a physical space in a school building. Second Life classrooms are becoming more and more common in the secondary and university levels. Second Life learning environments allow for "open-ended opportunities for exploration and invention" ( Kemp et al) .Click HERE to view a CNN article on Second Life Classrooms.

• Digital immigrants, a thing of the past?? According to Rockman et al’s study, the students in the laptop program may not have been digital natives when the program started, but having access to laptops 24/7 certainly could have gone a long way toward honorary citizenship. The report indicated that “students were quite skilled at using their laptops... Students worked without the help of teachers and were able to solve problems if something went wrong nearly all of the time spent on laptops (90%)”. However, students did not have Internet access at home, so their access was partially limited outside of the school. Since the report on the laptop program included teacher interviews and observation of teachers (digital immigrants), it is interesting to note that only six teachers said they wanted the program to continue, while three did not and two teachers said the program might be unnecessary. The report did not include data on how many students, parents, or administrators wanted to continue the laptop program, so readers can only guess if the digital immigrants’ lukewarm desire to continue using laptops was mirrored in the students.

• With 1:1 laptops, teachers will be propelled into this age of Web 2.0 for the classroom. They will need training, mentoring, and time to reflect on what this technology means for their teaching. There must be goals in place to maintain the quality of instruction that 1:1 laptops demand. This technology will be wasted if we use these expensive resources as fancy notebooks.

• A whole new world of Professional Development opportunities! Teachers learning from other teachers across the globe through online workshops, online articles, and blogs!

• Teachers may need a redefined model of classroom management to face the challenges of a distracting multimedia classroom.

• The concept of 1:1 laptops will accelerate challenges for administrators and educators concerning filtering and intellectual freedom. If students have their laptop 24/7, wouldn't we expect that they are accessing the Internet whenever they find it necessary to do so? Of course, there will be no teacher or teacher-librarian (or maybe even a parent) looking over a learner's shoulder 24/7. There is no such thing as a perfect filtering system, so administrators or divisional IT policymakers may end up choosing between using filters that restrict a student's access to information or removing filters altogether. For example, if students with full-time access to a laptop are consistently unable to complete assignments in as comprehensive a manner as students without laptops, a large component of the rationale for having 1:1 laptops would be negated.
• In Rockman et al's Kamehameha Schools Maui Laptop Project: Findings from Classroom Observations and Teacher Interviews, a filtering system was not explicitly reported upon, but the report did indicate that in fact students were not allowed to download files; subsequently, teachers protested that full access was not available. Furthermore, students did not have full intellectual freedom if they were not given free access to any data. However, teachers reported that before the laptop program began, “the limited amount of computer use… [and] restrictions on their use… prevented them [students] from using the computers regularly.” Therefore, students who were given laptops may actually have enjoyed more intellectual freedom as far as accessing the Internet on a more regular basis.
• Russell et al commented that one of the factors contributing to the success of laptop learning in the upper elementary classrooms was that the principal had a vision and provided leadership with technology immersion in these classrooms.

• SHOW ME THE MONEY!! As mmardis explains, "access to adequate amounts and types of hardware is an ongoing issue, but we’re now seeing access play out in schools in terms of bandwidth available for applications like streaming video and audio". Provinces will have to re-evaluate their own view of education to include funds for technology support including software, hardware, and technology specialists. New Brunswick has given out at least 1500 laptops to students, and all teachers in the province were also offered one (see a review of the project HERE). Of course, New Brunswick's neighbouring state is Maine, which has rolled out a state-wide laptop program for all middle school students. Does proximity to a successful laptop program inspire educational technology funding, or is a form of competition necessary?

• With 1:1 laptop learning teachers and students will have access to resources worldwide. Students can use web 2.0 tools like blogger, flickr and wikis, which bring rich media together to interact with peers and globally (Naslund and Guistini, 2008) Also, Rick Kopak suggests that a resource like "open access" would give students access to credible and up to date journals (Kopak, 2008). Or while studying the Ukraine in Grade 3 Social Studies, for example, students would be able to learn from students in schools in the Ukraine through video conferencing or through a variety of web 2.0 tools including blogs and social networks.